Archives for June 2017

Forget the red state/blue state debate for a minute. If you’re in the market for talent, you really need to be thinking about the yellow state/blue state phenomenon.

The map above (courtesy of United Van Lines) illustrates whether states are experiencing inbound, outbound, or balanced migration. For those of you in the blue states, congrats! Finding talent is likely a bit easier for you than your friends in the yellow states. But all is not lost for you, my yellow-hued pals! You can always consider a virtual hire to significantly expand your talent pool.

Not surprisingly, Talent Market’s experience reflects the map quite well. For instance, a recent search in blue Washingtonstate yielded three times the number of candidates as a nearly identical search in yellow New York state. And for another similar search that allowed for a virtualoffice, the client had five times more candidates than the Washington state search!

Now, of course, other factors were involved (reputation, pay, job details, etc.); but the numbers certainly reinforce the yellow state/blue state map. And they hopefully will provide inspiration for you to consider hiring virtually.

If you haven’t yet jumped on the virtual hiring bandwagon, here are some things on which to ruminate.

• If a virtual employee works in a forest and no one is around to see it, does he accomplish anything?
Let’s face it: one reason employers are wary of virtual work is that they won’t be able to see the work getting done. You’ll need to shed this way of thinking if you want to modernize your workforce. By focusing on work product and results (instead of who is best at water cooler talk), it will be easier for you to determine who your most valuable employees are.

• Not every job can be done remotely, but many jobs can be done (at least partially) from a virtual office.
Some jobs lend themselves to remote work (e.g. researcher), while other roles seem virtually impossible — pun intended — to do from afar (e.g. office manager). Many roles, however, can be handled at leastpartially from a home office. For instance, a communications director might benefit from being in the office to strategize and coordinate with staff, and being at home to write, edit, and engage in social media outreach. If you doubt me about the viability of remote offices, look at State Policy Network. It’s a well-oiled machine with headquarters in Arlington, but the majority of employees are spread around the country.

• Infrastructure and communication are key.
If you’re going to hire remotely, make sure you have the infrastructure to do it. Your remote workers will need the basics (a reliable computer, phone, internet connection, file-sharing capability, etc.). And because distance will separate you, communication is critical. You’ll need to step up the phone calls, video conferences, and emails to keep the lines of communication open.

• Great virtual employees are simply great employees.
I’ve talked to some nonprofit leaders who have been burned by a virtual hire. As a result, they are hesitant to try again. But in asking questions, I often discover that the virtual hires who failed weren’t top-tier talent to begin with. And putting them in a remote offices with the focus on work product only highlighted their weaknesses. This is why it’s important to put only great employees in virtual settings. Self-motivated, results-oriented individuals with keen judgment are your best bets. And you may just find that you get more out of them working remotely…which brings me to my final point.

• Watch the productivity increase exponentially!
We talk about working 8 or 10 hour days, but if we knew how much of that time was actually spent on work, we might be shocked. Consider the time spent commuting, chatting with cube-mates about weekend plans, attending justify-your-job meetings, lunching with co-workers, etc. It adds up! I’ve been working virtually for eight years and am still amazed about how much more productive I am now than when I worked in an office setting. And while I spend more hours working than before, the stress is gone — probably because I’m not distracted and I don’t have to sit in traffic and shout expletives at people who cut me off (not that I would do that).

For more on this topic, I suggest reading Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. As always, I welcome your feedback on this topic. If you’ve had a great (or horrendous) experience with virtual work, let me know!

It’s May. If you close your eyes and listen hard enough, you can almost hear “Pomp and Circumstance” playing in harmony with a collective sigh of relief from parents and an occasional squeal of excitement from graduates eager to set foot in the real world.

As such, now is as good a time as any to offer advice to our new graduates who will soon enter the workforce.

1. Present Yourself Like the Professional You Want to Be
After one of my first post-college interviews, the potential employer pulled me aside to offer some advice: “Lose the purple lipstick. It’s unprofessional.” My first thought was “Purple? This isn’t purple! It’s mauve!” I later pulled out the tube in good lighting. I’ll be darned if it wasn’t the shade of Grimace.

I was mortified. But more importantly, I was lucky that someone had shaken a little bit of that collegiate overconfidence out of me. I needed to be reminded that the way I had presented myself in college was not appropriate for the real world. In addition to tacky lipstick, young professionals should ditch casual clothing, short skirts, flip-flops, super-tight skinny pants, revealing tops, and other unprofessional attire.

Remember: if you dress like a college kid, employers will probably treat you as such. But if you dress like a professional, you’ll likely be taken more seriously.

2. Clean Up Your (Social Networking) Room
I hate to sound like your mother, but you really need to clean up your room — your social networking room, that is. Online behavior that was fine for a college setting may not necessarily be acceptable to a potential employer.

Scrub your social media sites of inappropriate posts, comments, and photos. If I had a dollar for every employer who passed over a candidate because of something unsavory that was found online about him, I’d have a yacht docked next to Richard Branson’s.

And while you’re online, make sure to join LinkedIn. It may have seemed pointless in college; but from now on, it will be an invaluable networking tool if you use it wisely.

3. Don’t Job Jump
Cliff Clavin fun fact for the day: Did you know that the average job tenure is sevenyears for Baby Boomers, fiveyears for Gen X, and only 18 months for Millennials?

This is a troubling trend for employers. After all, why would they want to hire someone who will leave shortly after he has been properly trained — and perhaps even before he has started adding real value to the organization?

But it’s also a troubling trend for recent graduates. Why? Because staying on the job for a year and a half doesn’t give them an opportunity to actually dig in, build a significant portfolio of accomplishments, and truly make a difference. After all, you don’t want your knowledge to be a mile wide and an inch deep.

Many of the nonprofit hiring managers we work with won’t even talk to someone whose resume screams, “I jump jobs with the frequency of a cheap ham radio.” Don’t let that be you!

4. Try Not to Reinforce the Millennial Stereotype
In a recent discussion with friends about managing people at work, I got an earful about Millennials and how challenging some of them can be. Among the complaints:

? Millennials need constant praise and rewards – One friend complained of an entry level staffer who wanted to be “rewarded for coming to work on time, completing tasks in a timely manner, and taking only a 30 minute lunch.” The take-away? Don’t expect accolades for meeting basic expectations.

? Millennials feel entitled – Another friend told of a junior level staffer who thought he was ready for a senior management role — despite the fact he was struggling to perform the duties of his current role. Make sure you’ve mastered your current role before proclaiming your ability to run the show.

? Millennials are more comfortable in front of screen than a human – One friend lamented that the art of in-person conversation is lost on Millennials. Email is efficient, but know when to walk down the hall and have a face-to-face conversation with a co-worker or boss.

5. Remember the Importance of Reputation
If you interned or participated in a conference, workshop, or seminar in the liberty movement during college, you’ve already started sharpening one of the most useful arrows in your career quiver: your reputation.

The good news: if you worked hard and produced quality work, people are talking about that — and it will likely help you land a job in the future. The bad news: if you slacked off and copped an attitude, that news is traveling twice as fast.

With every new job, project, and relationship, you’ll have a chance to build your name. If you develop a positive reputation now, it will open countless doors for you throughout your career.
Feel free to forward this along to recent graduates. And don’t forget to encourage them to get connected with Talent Market (http://talentmarket.org/candidates/sendyourresume/) if they have an interest in a free-market nonprofit career!